Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Strong and Moving!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Proust meets "Groundhog Day" in a Donbass coal mining town of Stalinist Russia, with a soundtrack featuring Nautilus Pompilius doing "Goodbye America" – is it any wonder that Khotinenko's Mirror ranks as one of a half-dozen perestroika-era movies that have achieved must-see status for Russians, ex-Soviets, never-were-Soviets and the rest of us?The high-dome version: Zerkalo/Mirror said two things well in 1987 and just as well today: (1) the past is more complex than you thought; and (2) you can't fix it but you can understand it better – which makes empathy possible and reconciliation within reach. To describe much more is to deprive Mirror of some of its power to surprise, so enough said – OK, plus these extra credit questions: 1. Does the Mirror of the title reflect (as it were) A. Tarkovsky's Mirror of 1974? And 2. Is somebody trying to further Perestroika II by putting Perestroika I movies like this one on prime-time Moscow TV so frequently of late, as the reports have it? Isn't that a nice conspiracy theory to contemplate, for a change?

It's not a Perestroika movie like previous reviewer said. Funny enough his opinion was copied all over internet. This is a good and strong story about people trapped in a time loop in Stalin time. Funny and sad at times. It's probably hard to comprehend some twists in the story if you're unfamiliar with Russian and USSR history. However, it's not a historic movie. Obviously, main line is about grown up children judging their parents for things they've done int he past. In this case, 2 guys from present time (1987 year actually) found themself in 1930th. One of them was sentenced for responsibility at coal mine explosion. He's doing his best to destroy that coal mine in the past. Another guy meets his parents, pregnant mother and father... Enough of spoilers. :) Bottom line. Good movie, maybe underrated in Russia, story may seem to be too straight for some people, but it makes people rethink the past and, what's more important, it's very moral and rememberable.

* Some of it may be a spoiler* Two friends, typical average middle-class Soviet men of late 80s, are walking along when one of them trips on a rusty wire, sticking out of the ground. Miraculously, (and at first unknown to them) they are transfered some 40 years back, in year 1949, the zenith of Stalinist era. They are forced to re-live the same day in '49 over and over again (this movie was filmed some six years before Groundhog Day, and I wonder sometimes if it inspired it in some ways). They can't change the events but they themselves change, and find out what each of them is really worth. The movie title, translated in English, means "A Mirror for a Hero".

Take any of the Andrey Tarkovsky's movies, take away all the art-houseness from it and you'll get "Zerkalo dlya geroya". Quite interesting that I watched this movie when was a child and didn't like it because I didn't understand a thing, watched it when I was a teenager and quite liked it but didn't understand it anyway and finally I've watched it now and found that it's a great movie with a good and deep idea.The plot (no big spoilers): Young Sergey (Sergey Koltakov) and his old father are two quite different men: Sergey cannot understand why his father is so concerned about the other people's fates, about fates of towns and villages and the fate of the whole country. He finds him an old fool, but Sergey's own fate soon forces him to understand his father. On a show of the rock band "Nautilus Pompilius" (semi-underground at the Soviet times) he meets Andrey, an aged man who was once imprisoned for an incident on a coal mine that was under his management. After the show they take a walk in a park and suddenly discover that a movie is being made there. The two want to find a better place to see the movie-makers set and Andrey suggests one. The two run around a high concrete fence and Andrey stumbles at a thick wire stuck in the ground. He falls. Once he is up the both men walk to the end of the fence and suddenly find there is no park behind it: they see a steam engine and a militiaman in the uniform of Stalin times, they find themselves in a little coal-mining town they were both grown in. Soon Andrey begins to think that fate gives him a chance to prevent the accident he was imprisoned for, Sergey unwillingly discovers his father's generation for himself, their time, their lives and what they lived for.Acting, as well as photography and direction is absolutely amazing. The scenes in the old coal mine are stunning and unforgettable. Very sensible and thoughtful movie that still doesn't leave a heavy trace as all the Tarkovsky's works. And of course, some knowledge of who Stakhanov and NKVD were would be very helpful if you want to understand everything.